A Very Good Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was probably the least harried of any I've ever prepared for. There were a number of contributing factors that made it less of a juggling act.

First, the day I was given off this week was Wednesday. (That's because NO ONE was supposed to be off today -- Black Friday--or tomorrow because they are very hectic shopping days and we need "all men on board". I work today from 8 until 6, tomorrow from 12 until 10PM)

Secondly, I decided to cook my turkey early. I always cook it ahead of the meal anyway because I want the broth that cooks out for gravy and I like to put some of the turkey into my dressing. But this time I cooked it on Wednesday instead of Wednesday during the night. That meant I didn't have to get up in the night and check on it and I didn't have to get up at 6AM or earlier to deal with it.

Third, Jeni was here to help me and we got some stuff done on Wednesday afternoon after taking a quick shopping trip to Arab to pick up some sweet potatoes for 38 cents a pound. (We got some other stuff too.)

Fourth, I saw one of the saints and they told me there would be no church because of some work that was being done on the church. Now, believe me, I like going to church and I would not even think that I'd like for it to be cancelled, but it was, so that gave me more time in the evening. But there was something additional about that.

Fifth, this was the week the cleaning team I'm on was supposed to clean the church and we had set it up to do it after church. Well, that got pre-empted. I was not sorry about that even though we have to figure out another time. Tentatively that will be in the morning before I go to work.

Sixth, Tesia and Felicia helped out by bringing some of what needed to be prepared.

Seventh. It was a beautiful day and the kids played outside. That kept things less hectic on the inside. Also, Felicia-- with her new birthday camera-- took some really nice pictures of the kids and the whole family. (I will try to remember to get back and post some of those as soon as she uploads them to Facebook. I can nab them from there.)

Eighth. We ate an hour earlier because both Josh and Tim had other places to go-- other family-- later so that meant clean up got started earlier too. I got the food put away, Jeni loaded the dishwasher and started it and I .....

Ninth. I took a long (for me) nap. An hour and a half. Then I went back to cleaning up. It took another load in the dishwasher and quite a bit of hand washing to get it all done, but before it was real late, everything was clean and I got to relax again for awhile.

There were some sad parts to the day. One thing was that Cathi called from South Alabama and told me that someone with her had got a call that her young daughter was in a car wreck. She wanted me to find out more about it because the mother was stressed. I learned that the little girl had died. (She had been air lifted to the hospital.) I just kept thinking to myself that it was so sad for that family. I prayed for them in their grief and hated it so much that every Thanksgiving from now on, they will have that wound opened because she was killed in an accident on Thanksgiving Day.

Now I must hurry. I need to get out of here soon and go out into the mad rush.